When an Employee Tells You They're Pregnant: Employer Obligations Checklist (Australia)

When a staff member tells you they are pregnant, the single most important thing is tone. Congratulate them. Thank them for telling you. Do not — in that first conversation — ask about their return-to-work plans, their partner's leave, or any operational concerns. You can come back to those things later. In the first conversation, keep it warm and keep it short.

There is a practical reason for this beyond basic decency. Under the general protections regime in the Fair Work Act, anything you say in the 24 hours after a pregnancy disclosure is potential evidence. A flippant comment — 'how are we going to cope without you?' or 'that's a bit inconvenient with the busy season coming up' — can end up in an affidavit six months later. Keep the conversation simple. Make a diary note of the date and the fact that the disclosure was made. Don't record specifics.

Within a week, set up a proper follow-up meeting. Agenda: (1) planned leave dates, (2) any immediate safe-work adjustments needed, (3) timing for formal notice. Make that meeting a two-way conversation, not an interrogation. Have the HR person, not the direct manager, attend if you have HR support.

Six obligations sit under the NES and general protections once a pregnancy is disclosed. Get these wrong and you are exposed to civil penalties, compensation, and reinstatement orders. Get them right and the administrative burden is honestly pretty small.

1. 12 months of unpaid parental leave (section 70) — if the employee has 12 months of continuous service, this is a right, not a request.
2. Right to request an additional 12 months (section 76) — can only be refused on reasonable business grounds, in writing, within 21 days.
3. Transfer to a safe job (section 81) — if the role has risks, you must transfer to a safe equivalent. If none exists, paid no-safe-job leave.
4. Return to pre-leave position (section 84) — or an available alternative nearest in status and pay.
5. No adverse action (Part 3-1) — no dismissal, demotion, hours reduction, or disadvantageous change that relates to pregnancy or leave.
6. Paid Parental Leave pass-through — you must register for and administer government PPL through payroll when eligible employees make a claim.

Put all six on a one-page internal checklist and have your HR/payroll person sign off when each is complete. That checklist alone will keep you out of 90% of the trouble small employers get into.

If the role involves heavy lifting, prolonged standing, shift work, chemical exposure, infection risk, or any other hazard, your WHS duty requires a risk assessment. This is not optional, and you cannot wait for the employee to ask. The duty triggers as soon as you know about the pregnancy.

A good risk assessment covers: physical demands of the role, any mandatory PPE or clothing issues, exposure to chemicals, biological agents, or radiation, manual handling, ergonomic factors (prolonged sitting, awkward postures), heat or cold, stress or mental health risks, fatigue risk (especially shift work), driving requirements. Write it down. Have the employee sign it. Update it at 28 weeks and again at 36 weeks because the risk profile changes as pregnancy progresses.

If the role cannot be made safe through adjustments, you have two options: transfer to a safe job at the same rate of pay, or put the employee on paid no-safe-job leave for the remainder of the risk period (section 81 of the Fair Work Act). Either way, the employee's income is protected. Failing to do either is a breach of the NES that carries civil penalties.

The employee is required to give you at least 10 weeks' written notice of their intention to take parental leave, including expected start and end dates, and then confirm 4 weeks before leave starts. Your job on receipt of that notice is: (1) acknowledge in writing within 7 days, (2) calculate the leave period, (3) start the backfill/coverage planning, (4) enrol them in the government PPL claim process.

A template acknowledgement: 'Thank you for your notice dated [date] under section 74 of the Fair Work Act 2009. We confirm your planned parental leave period is from [start] to [end], being [X] weeks. We will now begin preparing for your leave and the government Paid Parental Leave claim. Please confirm your dates in writing at least 4 weeks before the start date.' That's it.

If the employee cannot give 10 weeks' notice (premature birth, emergency adoption), they are required to give notice 'as soon as reasonably practicable' — and their entitlement is not lost by short notice. Don't penalise short notice in emergency circumstances.

From 1 July 2026, government Paid Parental Leave runs for 26 weeks at the national minimum wage ($948/wk). As the employer, you are required to administer PPL through your payroll system when an eligible employee claims. You are fully reimbursed by Services Australia — PPL is not a cost to you. But you must have the administrative machinery in place.

Steps to set up: (1) register as a 'PLP employer' through your Services Australia business online account; (2) confirm your payroll system (Xero, MYOB, QuickBooks, etc.) has the PLP earnings category enabled; (3) train your payroll person on the PLP claim process — Services Australia sends you the claim approval and schedule, you process it as a wage payment with tax withheld via STP, and reimbursement follows.

Common mistakes: treating PLP as the employer's own funds (it's not — it's Services Australia's money passing through), failing to pass through the correct weekly amount, withholding super on PLP (the ATO pays super on PLP separately from 1 July 2025 — you don't), not reconciling reimbursements against PLP payments made. The ATO and Services Australia both audit this.

Backfill is the single biggest cost of parental leave to most small employers. A 12-month absence can cost $80,000–$150,000 in replacement labour depending on the role, on top of your top-up pay and super obligations. Plan for it early.

Three common backfill options:

• Temp agency / recruitment firm — fastest, most expensive (typically 20–30% above direct wage cost). Good for roles with clear scopes and short timelines.
• Fixed-term contractor — cheaper, more effort to find, but can be a strong option for mid-level professional roles. Use a written contract that expressly ends on the return of the employee on parental leave.
• Internal secondment + promotion — a junior team member steps up, backfilled below them by a temp or hire. Low external cost, good for development, but requires planning.

Use our Employer Parental Leave Cost Calculator to model the actual per-claim cost for your business. Don't underestimate admin time either — plan for 3–8 hours of payroll manager time per claim.

The Fair Work Act allows up to 10 keeping-in-touch days during unpaid parental leave without ending the leave or disentitling the employee from PLP. These can be used for things like team meetings, training, handovers, or casual work days. Both parties must agree — you cannot require an employee to come in, and they cannot demand to be paid for work they haven't performed.

Keeping-in-touch days are typically paid at the normal hourly rate. The days are counted toward the PLP claim but do not disentitle the employee from government PPL payments. The FWO has a specific fact sheet on how to administer these — worth reading before you schedule them.

Outside of keeping-in-touch days, your contact during leave should be minimal and purposeful. Send team updates, organisational news, policy changes that affect the employee. Do not send performance feedback, escalations, or operational requests. The general protection against adverse action applies during leave — unnecessary contact that could be characterised as pressure is a risk.

The return-to-work moment is where small employers most often create legal exposure. Section 84 of the Fair Work Act requires you to return the employee to their pre-parental-leave position, or an available alternative nearest in status and pay. This means you cannot:

• Demote them because the person who covered their role is performing well.
• Change their reporting line in a way that reduces their status.
• Cut their hours unless they have requested a change.
• Change their duties in a way that reduces their status or scope.
• Move them to a different location without agreement.
• Put them on probation or performance management as a 'fresh start'.

If a genuine restructure has occurred during their absence that has eliminated the pre-leave role, you need to go through a proper redundancy consultation process — and that process applies to the employee on parental leave just as it would to any other affected employee. You cannot use 'you were on leave' as a reason to skip consultation.

If the employee wants to return part-time or request flexible work, handle that as a separate section 65 request — respond in writing within 21 days and only refuse on reasonable business grounds. Returning from parental leave is not a reset on flexibility requests; if anything, the grounds for flexibility are stronger post-leave.